At Close Quarters
by Whack-the-beetle
Summary: Wriggling her way out of a tight spot with her boss, Doctor Aphra has to concentrate very hard not to get... distracted. Vadaphra.


**Disclaimer: Don't own any Star Wars characters.**

**Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra on a mission somewhere doing something, which the humble author hasn't bothered to make up.**

**Silly little ficlet that can't quite decide whether it wants to be mildly erotic or just simply crack. Alternative title: Ode to the codpiece**

**Written with my brain somewhere in the gutter, and I apologize in advance.**

* * *

"Doctor Aphra, I distinctly remember telling you to wait for my return."

"There…" she wheezed, "there were sentry droids."  
Sithhell, but that hurt! Her fall, or more precisely the less than cushioned landing, had knocked the breath straight out of her lungs, and her chest felt like it had been trampled by a rampaging bantha.

"Sentry droids?"

"Yes."  
She took a deep breath, but exhaled again quickly when it increased the strain against her sore ribs.  
"They were coming at me from both directions – too many to get rid off and stay inconspicuous, so I decided I better make myself scarce, "she jerkily forced out between shallow pants.

"Have they noticed you?"  
His voice was sharp, instantly suspicious.

She shook her head, groaning quietly when the movement sent a sharp stab of pain from her neck straight to the base of her skull. Probably some mild whiplash to boot.  
"No, I don't think so. I was behind a couple of crates when they entered the hangar."

"Good."

The word sent small flurry of tingling vibrations against her shoulder blades.  
That was odd.  
Properly paying attention to her surroundings for the first time, she noticed that she was currently hanging about a foot and a half from solid ground, feet dangling in mid-air, with her front pushed up tightly against the wall of the maintenance shaft by what felt like… like Darth Vader's chest armour.  
Well, that was awkward.

"Er boss? Would you mind giving me some room? The pressure against my chest is quite frankly starting to get painful."

"Would that I could."  
His vocoder made an odd sound which could have been its translation of an exasperated sigh.

"Why… what…? Oh!"  
That's right - he couldn't.  
There simply wasn't enough room for a petite human female and an oversized cyborg in the narrow shaft, and the momentum of her fall had wedged her so tightly into the remaining space between him and the wall that neither of them would be going anywhere anytime soon.  
Kark, but she hadn't thought about that when she had jumped after him, had she?

"'Oh' indeed."  
The low pitch of his bass rumbled threateningly against her back.

"Talk about being caught between a rock and hard place, eh?" she quipped rather more bravely than she felt.

"Your humour is not appreciated Aphra."

The temperature dropped by several degrees and Aphra winced – best not to aggravate the situation with an ill-timed joke. It would be an incredibly undignified way to die, jammed down a maintenance shaft like an overfed ship rat that had got stuck in a sewage pipe.

"Ok boss, I got this, just let me…"  
Attempting to create some distance between them, she wriggled her upper body, gritting her teeth when the movement made her breasts scrape painfully against the wall. Her hands scrabbled uselessly against the smooth duracreet before she gave up with a frustrated huff – so far she had only managed that the switches of his control box dug even more uncomfortably into her back.

"Huh, looks like we're stuck."

"Yes Aphra, so I have noticed."

Yes, the sarcasm was strong with this one. So she had been stating the obvious, but his laconic reply wasn't exactly helpful either. She quickly quashed her irritation at his tartness – it would take somebody either very brave or very foolish to point that out to him, and she considered herself neither.  
She gave it another minute before she prodded him again.  
"So, what now?"

His respirator sounded rather loud and ominous in the cramped confines as he pondered the problem. Kriff, he was so close that she could even feel it - every intake of breath pressed her fractionally more firmly against the wall.  
She sincerely hoped that there wasn't enough room for him to operate his lightsaber, in case he came to the conclusion that dismemberment was the best and quickest solution to their dilemma.

"I will levitate you back up the shaft," he said at length.

"Levitate? You can do that? But of course you can – you're Darth Vader."  
She didn't harbour any delusions that flattery would gain her any favours with him, but his special talents _were_ rather impressive.  
She frowned, thinking. "I guess that would solve the problem, except…"

"Except what?" he interrupted impatiently.

"Well, there are still the sentry droids to consider," she offered cautiously. She bit down on her lip, half convinced that he wouldn't see this as an issue at all, but rather an unexpected and welcome benefit, given the mess she had landed them both in.

"That is a concern," he conceded to her surprise. "It would be unfortunate indeed if were to get out of this ridiculous predicament only for our presence to be discovered minutes later."

Relieved that her demise was apparently not imminent, Aphra hurried to make herself useful. Craning her neck as far as possible, she examined the walls, looking for an alternative solution. Visibility was poor though, and the only thing she could make out in the darkness was a faint rectangle of light some three meters above them – the service hatch where they had accessed the maintenance shaft in the first place.

"Isn't there another way out?" she asked tentatively.

"There is," he confirmed, "but it is of little use to us now – the opening connecting this shaft with an adjoining tunnel is located in the corner behind me."

Well, that was some good news at least, wasn't it? Now they only had to unstick themselves long enough for one of them to make it through that opening.  
"Right. So if I climb up a little and brace myself against the wall, that should give you enough space to get to the connecting tunnel."

She didn't wait for his approval. Stemming her hands against the sides of the shaft, she swung her legs back and forth, attempting to find a foothold that would allow her to hoist herself further up.  
It took several trials before her slipping and sliding feet finally found purchase. Knees bent at an uncomfortable angle, she strained to maintain her precarious foothold, and then pushed back.

The flaw in her plan became apparent, when her backside collided firmly with something roundish and hard.  
Her breath hitched when realization of what was currently pressed snugly into to crease between her buttocks jolted through her with the force of a lightning bolt.  
She stilled her movement instantly, but the fact remained that, yes, she had just rammed her ass right into his codpiece like a particularly wanton Twilek dancing girl rutting up to a potential customer.  
The contact was searing, and she felt her face heat up with embarrassment and something completely inappropriate that rooted in the area of her bottom and sent warm tremors all the way up her spine.

She wanted to clear her throat to gloss over the awkward moment, but stopped herself.  
It was still possible, however unlikely, that he had not noticed her slip, and if that was the case, it would be stupid of her to alert him to the fact.  
Deciding therefore to act like nothing was amiss, she tried her hand at a diversionary manoeuvre while surreptitiously adjusting her position.

"Ok, so that's a first step," she announced in falsely cheerful voice, as if planting her behind on his crotch had been her intention all along.  
She inched her hands further up in preparation, and then pressed her feet into the wall while simultaneously lifting up her pelvis.  
For a brief moment she thought that she had succeeded, but then her fingers slipped on the treacherously sleek duracreet, and she could feel in all colourful detail how her bum slammed once more into his codpiece and slid down the whole length of it for extra effect.

That finally got a reaction out of him – his hands fastened themselves around her hips in a durasteel grip that was just short of painful.  
"Cease this futile fidgeting."

Was it just her imagining or did his voice sound slightly strained? It was difficult to tell through the modulating effects of the vocoder.

"It will not work that way. You will have to turn around," he added.

Aphra bit back the hysterical and rather juvenile giggle that was creeping up her throat. The double entendre their respective positions suggested was most likely not intended, and she better got her mind out the gutter before he picked up on any of her thoughts.

"Understood. Awfully sorry, boss. So how do you suggest that… Oof!"

The grip on her hips suddenly tightened, and she was lifted up none too gently, her much abused nipples protesting again when her torso was forcefully wrenched free from the wall.  
She reflexively held out an arm to steady herself against the wall before she overbalanced and crashed headfirst into it.  
Massaging her bruised ribs, she shot him an annoyed glare.  
"A little warning wouldn't have gone amiss there," she grumbled under her breath.

"I will levitate you up to give you enough room to turn around," he boomed, completely ignoring her objection. "That way you should be able to get past me and reach the connecting tunnel at the bottom. It leads straight to the reactor core – disable it, and meet me back at the ship. You have ten minutes."

She couldn't resist giving the wall a sloppy salute. "Yessir."  
So he obviously hadn't planned on accompanying her into the tunnel. Made sense really - she imagined that it would be an even tighter fit than the current one.  
"What, if you don't mind me asking, will you be doing?"

"_I_ will be dealing with the droids."

He sounded like he looked forward to it.  
Of course, maintaining secrecy was pretty pointless when they were going to blow up the space station anyway, but timing was essential. However, he was more than capable of causing enough mayhem for her to sneak to the reactor core unnoticed – the perfect distraction, as he had no doubt anticipated. Pretty risky, but she had to applaud his shrewd planning.  
"Ok, have fun I guess."

"Enough idle talk – ready yourself Aphra," he snapped.

"Ready at your command boss," she replied serenely.  
Well, that should be interesting.

His fingers dug into her flesh again, probably compounding the already existing bruises there she imagined, and then with one powerful shove she was thrown upwards.  
She had half expected to come crashing right down again, but bizarrely she kept on floating a good three feet above him, completely unsupported.  
The feeling was decidedly eerie - as if she was being held by invisible hands or threads, but not quite. Whatever kept her hovering in thin air felt strong, but a lot less substantial than anything she had ever encountered.  
Must be the Force she thought abstractedly, and then gasped when her body was suddenly forced to do a graceful turn in mid-air.

Looking down she could now see him properly for the first time. His head was tilted back and his arms were stretched out either side of him, reaching up towards her. There was an air of intense concentration about him, and she swallowed the question that was lying on her tongue, deeming it in her best interest not to interrupt whatever he was doing.

His hands clenched into fists, and her stomach did a backflip when she suddenly started to sink again. Slowly and methodically he lowered her down, inch by inch, and Aphra had the presence of mind to snap her legs together and lift both her arms above her head before they could get entangled again with the wall or any part of him.  
Her feet made it past his helmet without further complications, and the rest of her legs followed smoothly after that.  
She experienced another somewhat irrational lurch of embarrassment when her crotch came on a level with his mask. She clamped down on the instinctive urge to jerk away, rolling her eyes at her own body's squeamishness.  
'Come on Aphra, how old are you?' she chided herself mentally.

It shouldn't bother her, it really shouldn't, and most likely he hadn't even registered the fact that… wooosh!  
With another exhale of his respirator a gust of air was blown squarely against the apex of her thighs, and this time Aphra couldn't suppress a reaction.  
Her hips twitched involuntarily when a whiff of warm breath wafted through her trousers, tickling the sensitive skin of her groin and sending gooseflesh down her legs. She inhaled sharply - like the quick flick of a tongue, it shot through her mind - and something inside her went all soft and pliant at the comparison.

Not helpful, not helpful at all. Marshalling her wayward thoughts back into order, she risked a glance down.  
His stance remained unchanged, and if he was aware of the antics of her misbehaving body, then he had at least the good grace not to comment on it.

As she gradually sunk lower, the next potential mine field presented itself soon later when her chest came literally abreast with his face.  
This time Aphra was prepared for it though, and simply shrugged it off with a wry smile.  
Well, it wasn't as if she hadn't anything to show for in that department, and she might as well let him enjoy the close-up view if he was already doing all the work - and may the boobs be with him.

A bit further down her progress was stopped.  
She opened her eyes - which she had closed to avoid other unwelcome distractions - and found herself looking directly into the impenetrable lenses of his mask.  
Her mouth felt suddenly very dry.  
She couldn't see his eyes, not even from up so close, and it was impossible to tell if he was looking at her at all, but the very idea that she was staring into them – staring death straight into the eye another stray thought echoed through her head – was… exciting.  
Scary - for sure, improper - presumably, but also oddly… thrilling.  
How many people, she wondered, had looked into Darth Vader's eyes from up so close and walked away to tell the tale?

The moment felt strangely intimate, and with another jolt she realized why that was.  
Their faces so close together - like that ephemeral moment of anticipation just before…  
Unbidden, a mental image arose, and she asked herself with morbid curiosity what he would possibly do if she just leant in and pressed her lips against that formidable looking mouthpiece.  
Death would most likely be swift and merciless, and she _really_ should stop thinking about this, but she couldn't help imagining how her head would tilt forwards, closing the gap between them, and she could almost feel the sharp, grilled edges of his mask against her mouth, taste the cold metal on her tongue…  
She licked her lips, automatically and unconsciously, laboriously swallowing down the thick, ropey strands of saliva that had accumulated in her mouth.

A gust of breath blew over her face, breaking the spell, and she blinked several times to dispel the daring pictures that smelled so alluringly of danger and excitement.  
Stop it Aphra!  
Highly time that she called her recalcitrant imagination to order – like everyone else she had heard rumours about his supposed ability to read minds, and she didn't particularly care to find out whether they were true or not.

Her pulse thudded in her ears, and she hoped against hope that he had been too occupied with his force-enhanced aligning of her body to take notice of her unruly, wandering thoughts.  
Come to think of it, what was he doing?  
He had already kept her in this position longer than was strictly necessary in her opinion, and she briefly wondered whether he was distracted in a similar manner.  
She quickly discarded the idea – unlikely.  
The thought that he should not be affected at all by the surreal intensity of this moment rankled more than it should have done though, and she quickly shoved that away too, not in the mood to look at it too closely.

Her unspoken question was answered a second later when his hands closed themselves around her wrists, and the weird sensation of moving in zero gravity suddenly vanished.  
Aphra squeaked in surprise - after having felt so curiously light, it took her a moment to adjust to the weight of her own body again. It felt heavy and cumbersome, pulling her down and stretching her arms uncomfortably as she hung suspended by his hands.

He briefly squeezed her wrists, demanding her attention.  
"Concentrate Dr. Aphra," he admonished her, making it clear that he had noticed her distracted state.

How humiliating - she refused to contemplate just how much of her thoughts he had been privy to though, because she could see why he had rebuked her.  
Their operation was entering a somewhat critical state, and if they didn't want to end up stuck all over again, she would have to concentrate indeed.

Letting out all of her breath, she sucked her stomach in to the maximum, and gave him a terse nod, letting him know that she had understood and was ready.

It was incredibly tight – even though her back was flush against the wall, her breasts snagged on the metal of his chest armour, momentarily halting her descent.  
Gnawing her lower lip in apprehension, she held her breath and made herself as thin as possible.  
She felt him adjust his stance ever so slightly, and the leather of his gloves chaffed against the delicate insides of her arms as he reaffirmed his grip.

With a small jerk she came loose, and Aphra closed her eyes again, taking shallow and methodical breaths to ease her passage.  
She desperately tried to tune out the feeling of his body pressed snugly against the whole of her front as she slowly slid down.  
Was it just her or had it all of a sudden become remarkably warm in the maintenance shaft?

'Just ignore it' she told herself firmly, starting to mentally recite the operator manual for the BT-1 Blastromech prototype.

However, despite her valliant efforts, her thoughts screeched to a violent stop a moment later when her crotch skimmed over a part of his life-support suit she had already had the misfortune to become rather intimately acquainted with.  
'Sithspit! That damnable codpiece' she could only think before the world went white in a spark of fierce pleasure when the infernal thing rubbed against her in _just_ the right way.  
Hot and cold shivers churned through her body, and her muscles clenched in sweet, delicious anticipation.  
Without meaning to she sucked in a deep breath, and instantly felt how her body was pinned against the wall again as her chest expanded.

"Focus!" he growled at her.

Great, just kriffing great – she wanted to crawl into a small hole and die.  
To her chagrin, she couldn't stop a scorching blush creeping her throat and all the way up to her face, and she prayed to the Force and every deity that would listen that it was at least too dark for him to see her ruddy complexion – if he caught her blushing like a silly teenager on her first date that would just put the cherry on the whole cripplingly embarrassing cake.  
Untangling her thoughts, she did her best to relax and let the all the air out of her lungs, defying the chaotic signals of her body and the rather unlooked for bout of arousal.

The rest of her way down went without further glitches, and Aphra permitted herself a small sigh of relief when her feet finally touched solid ground.  
They were still uncomfortably close though – standing up her head was now level with the control box on his chest – and the prolonged physical contact became only more awkward by the minute.  
Also he hadn't let go of her wrists yet, and quickly assessing the situation, she realized why. To access the tunnel she would have to get _behind_ him, and that meant she would have to squat down and crawl between his legs since she couldn't step around him.  
Perfect, just what she needed.

Resigning herself to the inevitable, Aphra bent her knees obediently, clumsily shuffling her feet forwards in between his legs as she did so.  
He kept a firm hold on her, stabilizing her as she slowly crouched down, and his grip was starting to cut off the blood circulation in her hands. Pins and needles thrummed in her wrists, and her fingers felt stiff and puffy.

Too preoccupied with her general discomfort, Aphra didn't notice the rapidly approaching banana skin before it was too late.  
Halfway down, with her bum hovering a foot from ground and her legs uncomfortably stretched out before her, she finally came to eye to codpiece with the device that had already caused her enough inconvenience for the day, and thank you very much.

A crumbling stronghold of resistance in her mind undertook a last heroic attempt at distraction, crying out to her: 'Remember the operator manual!', but in vain – faced with such a striking close up view, she couldn't help but wonder whether what lay behind the codpiece corresponded in any way with its rather impressive size, and whether the owner of said codpiece could possibly experience similar difficulties in keeping his thoughts under control with her face practically shoved up his groin.

The strong, tangy scent of leather filled her nose, and her ears suddenly felt very hot and sensitive.  
'What the kark is wrong with you Aphra?!' the last remaining advocates for decorum screamed at her. 'Would you please stop thinking about giving your boss a blow job and concentrate on the task at hand?!'  
They had a point of course – her thoughts had yet again taken a great leap and landed straight in the gutter. She couldn't really comprehend herself at the moment if she was honest; where were these crazy ideas coming from?  
It wasn't like it had always been her dearest wish and ambition in life to have sex with Darth Vader - for a fact she hadn't even considered it up until now - so why did she have so much trouble keeping her imagination from plunging into completely inappropriate erotic fantasies?!

Another inarticulate sound from his vocoder brought to her attention that she had stopped in mid-crouch and was gawking at his codpiece like an idiot.  
She could have sworn that it had been his attempt at clearing his throat.

"Well, get on with it – we don't have all day," he said.

And this time Aphra would have betted the Ark Angel that she hadn't imagined the deliberate amusement layering the ambiguous statement.

To emphasize his point he let go of her hands, and Aphra landed on her bottom with a rather undignified squawk.  
She quickly scrambled behind him and hid herself in the entrance of the tunnel.  
"All clear boss," she announced in a small and rather breathy voice.

"Good. Now go, and complete your mission. And do not fail me!" he added menacingly.

"Yessir," she hastened to assure.

She had already started to crawl along the tunnel when he called out to her again.

"And Aphra?"

"Ye-es?" she replied hesitantly, hand suspended in mid-air. What now?

"Make sure you don't become… _distracted _on the way."

Son of a…  
It wasn't clear whether he was threatening or making fun of her, but that was for the moment irrelevant – she was just glad to finally put some very welcome distance between them, and hopefully have some time to wrestle her riotous thoughts into submission.  
Should be a piece of cake – after all she had several hours of hyperspace travel ahead of her in which she could exorcise the demon of that newly found attraction to her boss.

Several hours of hyperspace travel she would be spending in the cramped confines of a ship alone with Darth Vader… Ah, kriff! 

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**I know, I know it's ridiculous, but your thoughts and comments are appreciated as always.**  
**Happy Empire Day by the way!**


End file.
